Vegetable growing is flourishing in Cuscatlán, the smallest department in the tiny country of El Salvador, with the help of a national programme to promote family agriculture and lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

Proponents of a proposed higher “living wage” requirement for workers at large retailers here in Washington are stepping up their campaign, urging the city’s mayor to sign pending legislation into law.

Top U.S. companies are now in negotiations to agree on new safety standards for their clothing-producing contractors in Bangladesh, a month after a garment factory’s collapse in Dhaka killed more than 1,100 workers.

“It was dark and hot with choking dust all around. The air was filled with the smell of decomposing corpses,” recalled Nasima, a 24-year-old factory worker who spent four days buried under the rubble of an eight-storey building that collapsed in a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka last month.

Labour groups here are stepping up pressure on U.S. firms to sign a binding building safety agreement for Bangladeshi factories after 10 major European garment companies signed onto the landmark agreement.

Trade unions in Canada, the United States and Mexico are preparing protests and legal action against the Mexican subsidiary of Walmart, the world's largest retailer, which is accused of paying bribes and breaching labour rights.

Thousands of shopkeepers in Sir Stuart Hogg Market in Kolkata, the business hub of eastern India’s biggest city, are all talking about one thing: what they will do when multinational companies invade their ancient marketplace.